Youth suffers more than age. No blow that comes to age can be more
severe than the happening to a child which, to its elders, seems most
trivial. Each passing year adds toughness to the human's spiritual skin.
But with toughness comes loss of resiliency.
Clancy was neither seven nor seventy; she was twenty. She had not yet
acquired spiritual toughness, nor had she lost childhood's resiliency.
The blows that she had received in the forty-eight hours since she had
arrived in New York--the loss, as she believed, of her hoped-for career,
the fear of arrest on the hideous charge of murder, and, last, though by
no means least, the inability to draw upon the funds that she had so
proudly deposited in the Thespian Bank--all these were enough to bend
her. But not to break!
Her tears finally ceased. She had thrown herself upon the bed with an
abandon that would have made an observer of the throwing think her one
entirely surrendered to despair. Yet, before this apparently desperate,
hysterical hurling of her slim body upon a not too soft couch, Clancy
had carefully removed her jacket and skirt. She was not unique in this
regard for her apparel; she was simply a woman.
So, when, in the natural course of the passing hours, hunger attacked
Clancy, and she rose from the narrow bed that Mrs. Gerand provided for
the tenant of her "third-floor front" room, she had only to remove the
traces of tears, "fix" her hair, and don her waist and skirt to be
prepared to meet the public eye.
She had been lying down for hours, alternating between impulses toward
panic and toward brazen defiance. She compromised, of course, as people
always compromise upon impulses, by a happy medium. She would neither
flee as far from New York as seven dollars would take her nor surrender
to the searching police. She would do as she had intended to do when she
came down, earlier in the day, to Washington Square. She would look for
a job to-morrow, and as soon as she found one, she'd go to work at
anything that would keep her alive until the police captured the
murderer of Morris Beiner and rendered her free to resume her career.
And just now she would eat.
It was already dark. Somehow, although she was positive that she could
not have been traced to Washington Square, she had been timid about
venturing out in the daylight. But that very darkness which brings
disquiet to the normal person brought calmness and a sense of security
to Clancy. For she was now a different person from the girl who had
arrived in New York from Zenith two days before. She was now that social
abnormality--a person sought by the officers of justice. Her innocence
of any wrong-doing in no way restored her to normality.
So, instead of a frank-eyed girl, fresh from the damp breezes of Zenith,
it was an almost furtive-eyed girl that entered the Trevor, shortly
after six o'clock, and, carrying an evening paper that she had acquired
at the news-stand, sat down at a table in the almost vacant dining-room.
Her step was faltering and her glance wary. It is fear that changes
character, not sin.
She had entered the down-stairs dining-room of the Trevor, that hotel
which once catered to the French residents of New York, but that now is
the most prominent resort of the Greenwich Village bohemian or
near-bohemian. It held few guests now. It was the hour between tea and
dinner.
Clancy looked hastily over the menu that the smiling, courteous captain
of waiters handed her. With dismay, she saw that the Trevor charged
prices that were staggering to a person with only seven dollars in the
world. Nevertheless, the streak of stubbornness in Clancy made her fight
down the impulse to leave the place. She would not confess, by
implication, to any waiter that she had not money enough to eat in his
restaurant.
So she ordered the cheapest things on the menu. A veal cutlet, breaded,
cost ninety-five cents; a glass of milk, twenty; a baked potato,
twenty-five; bread and butter, ten. One dollar and a half for a meal
that could have been bought in Bangor for half the money.
The evening paper had a column, surmounted by a scare-head half a page
wide, about the Beiner murder. Clancy shivered apprehensively. But there
was nothing in the feverish, highly adjectived account to indicate that
Florine Ladue had been identified as the woman for whom Beiner had made
the engagement with Hildebloom, of the Rosebush studios. Clancy threw
care from her shoulders. She would be cautious, yes; but fearful--no!
This, after she had eaten a few mouthfuls of the veal cutlet and drunk
half of her glass of milk. A full stomach brings courage.
She turned the pages of the newspaper and found the "Help Wanted" page.
It was encouraging to note that scores of business firms needed
stenographers. She folded the paper carefully for later study and
resumed her dinner. Finished, finally, she reached for the paper. And,
for the first time, she became conscious that a couple across the room
was observing her closely.
Courage fled from her. A glimmering of what her position would continue
to be until her relation to the Beiner murder was definitely and for all
time settled flashed through her brain. She would be always afraid.
She had not paid her check. Otherwise, she would have fled the room.
Then she stiffened, while, mechanically, she returned David Randall's
bow.
What ill fate had sent her to this place? Then, as Randall, having
flashed her a smile that showed a row of extremely white although rather
large teeth, turned to the woman with whom he was dining, Clancy's
courage raced back to her.
What on earth was there to be nervous about? Why should this young man,
whose knowledge of her was confined to the fact that, two nights ago, he
had conveyed her in his runabout from somewhere on Park Avenue to the
Napoli, cause her alarm? She forced herself to glance again in Randall's
direction.
But the woman interested Clancy more than the young man who had
introduced himself two nights ago as David Randall. A blonde, with
reddish brown hair, most carefully combed, with a slightly tilted nose
and a mouth that turned up at the corners, she was, Clancy conceded, far
above the average in good looks. She was dressed for the evening. Two
days ago, Clancy would have thought that only a woman of loose morals
would expose so much back. But an evening spent at the Château de la
Reine had taught her that New York women exposed their backs, if the
exposure were worth while. This one was. And the severe lines of her
black gown set off the milky whiteness of her back.
Her eyes were envious as the woman, with a word to Randall, rose. She
lowered them as the woman approached her table. Then she started and
paled. For the woman had stopped before her.
"This is Sophie Carey," she said.
Clancy looked up at her blankly. Behind her blank expression, fear
rioted. The other woman smiled down upon her.
"I have been dining," she said, "with a most impetuous young man. He has
told me of a somewhat unconventional meeting with you, and he wishes me
to expurgate from that meeting everything that is socially sinful. In
other words, he pays me the doubtful compliment of thinking me aged
enough to throw a halo of respectability about any action of his--or
mine--or yours. Will you let me present him to you?"
Back in Zenith, no one had ever spoken to Clancy like this. She was
suddenly a little girl. New York was big and menacing. This woman seemed
friendly, gracious, charming. She had about her something that Clancy
could not define, and which was cosmopolitanism, worldliness.
"Why--why--it's awfully kind of you----"
The woman turned. One hand rested on the table--her left hand. A
wedding-ring was on it, and Clancy somehow felt relieved. With her right
hand, Mrs. Carey beckoned Randall. He was on his feet and at Clancy's
table in a moment.
"This," said Mrs. Carey, "is David Randall. He is twenty-nine years old;
his father was for three terms congressman from Ohio. David is a broker;
he was worth, the last time he looked at the ticker, four hundred and
ninety thousand dollars. He plays a good game of golf and a poor game of
tennis. He claims that he is a good shot, but he can't ride a horse. He
_can_ run a motor-car, but he doesn't know anything about a catboat."
"I could teach him that," laughed Clancy. Mrs. Carey's nonsense put her
at her ease. And all fear of Randall had vanished before he had reached
the table. How _could_ he know anything of her and her connection with
either Zenda or Beiner?
Randall held out a very large hand.
"You sail a boat, Miss--" He paused confusedly.
"Deane," said Clancy. She had thought, when she left Zenith, to have
left forever behind her the name of Deane. Ladue was the name under
which she had intended to climb the heights. "Yes, indeed, I can sail a
boat."
"You'll teach me?" asked Randall.
Mrs. Carey laughed.
"Lovely weather for boating, David. Where do you do your sailing, Miss
Deane?"
"Zenith Harbor. It's in Maine," said Clancy.
"But you don't live in Maine!" cried Randall.
Mrs. Carey laughed again.
"Don't be misled by his frank eyes and his general expression of innate
nobility and manliness, Miss Deane. That agony in his voice, which has
lured so many young girls to heartbreak, means nothing at all except
that he probably had an Irish grandmother. He really isn't worried about
your living in Maine. He feels that, no matter where you live, he can
persuade you to move to New York. And I hope he can."
Her last five words were uttered with a cordiality that won Clancy's
heart. And then she colored for having, even for the minutest fraction
of a second, taken Mrs. Carey's words seriously. Was she, Clancy Deane,
lacking in a sense of humor?
"Thank you," she said. Then, "I have an Irish grandfather myself," she
added slyly.
Mrs. Carey's face assumed an expression of sorrow.
"Oh, David, David! When you picked up a lone and lorn young lady in your
motor-car, mayhap you picked up revenge for a score of sad damsels who
were happy till they met you." She smiled down at Clancy. "If the high
gods of convention are wrathful at me, perhaps some other gods will
forgive me. Anyway, I'm sure that David will. And perhaps, after you've
had a cup of tea with me, you'll forgive me, too. For if you don't like
David, you're sure to like me."
"I know that," said Clancy.
Indeed, she already liked Mrs. Carey. Perhaps the sight of the
wedding-ring on Mrs. Carey's left hand made for part of the liking.
Still, that was ridiculous. She hardly knew this Randall person.
"I leave you in better company, David," said Mrs. Carey. "No, my dear
boy; I wouldn't be so cruel as to make you take me to the door. The car
is outside. You stay here and improve upon the introduction that I,
without a jealous bone in my body--well, without jealousy I have
acquainted myself with Miss Deane, and then passed on the acquaintance
to you." She lifted her slim hand. "No; I insist that you remain here."
She smiled once more at Clancy. "Did you notice that I used the word
'insist'?" She leaned over and whispered. "To save my pride, my harsh
and bitter pride, Miss Deane, don't forget to come to tea."
And then Clancy was left alone with Randall.